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Monday, November 28, 2011

The China's One-child policy started in 1978, and has been wrecking the gender ratio devastatingly since then. By 2020, as many as 24 million Chinese men will be doomed to make love to their hand for life. But the Chinese government doesn't care about those stats...

What they did instead is target the single woman, also known as "剩女" (Leftover woman). I mean yeah, they address both single men and women in their "2010中国人婚恋状况调查报告" report, but they actually have hilarious labels for the single woman from 25 years old and up.

Before we go into that...I translated some of the findings:

The report revealed that more than 40% of interviewed women hopes that their other half is a civil servant (this is of course not the same in Singapore), with other preferred choices being managers, policemen/military officers, entrepreneurs and medical professionals, thus showing women prefer stability in a relationship. 38.3% of interviewed men hopes that their other half is a teacher, with their other preferred choices being civil servants, medical professionals, bank professionals. 52.1% of interviewed men had no preference for the woman's career.

The major difference between the single men and women is that when men search for their other half, they focus on the woman's outward appearance, not so much on their capability at work, whereas their female counterpart are interested in the man's earning ability and work capability.

70% of interviewed women feel that the man should have a house, a stable income and a certain level of savings before he can get married. Amongst them, ~65% wish that the man's income is twice that of theirs, whereas 63% of interviewed men do not have high expectations on the woman's income.

Usually the women expect to pay more for expenses before marriage, and even more after marriage, though 53.2% of interviewed women expect the wife to manage the household budget. Sociologist Li Yinghe analyzed that some women's innate "subservient" mindset, and their expectations that the man must own a house conflicts with today's society advocating the independent woman.

Marriage expert Wang Zhiguo pointed out that mating habits are clearly skewed, erronously focusing on "house is more dependable than a man" and "crave big money" views on marriage (why target the women again??).

Nibblezware: Interestingly ageism is still very prevalent in modern China (and Singapore).

According to the report, the woman's mating pressures stem from men's expectations on the woman's age. More than 90% of the men felt that women should marry before 27 years of age, and of these, 32% felt that a woman's optimal marriage age is between 20-24 years old (someone go pull me to ze barn and shoot me between ze eyes). It is pretty obvious that age is cruel to a woman's quest for love.

On the other hand, more than 50% of women felt that the man's optimal marriage age is between 28- 30 years old. Because men of this age range tend to have worked for a while, so would likely have stable careers and a certain purchasing power, therefore said women would be more willing to marry the mature male.

23.8% of single people rely on their parents to find their other halves. The report also showed that singles born after 1980 (i.e. children born after the single child policy) are even more dependent on their parents' opinions and break up with their lovers due to parental dislike. This is because these singles are the result of the one-child policy in China, and usually not financially emancipated, therefore needing parental approval.

Most of the interviewed singles expressed a need for matchmaking aids, and cited reasons for their singlehood are due to small social circles, lacking own intiative, hurt from previous breakups and not knowing how to interact with the opposite gender.

Here comes the best part of the report:

看看你“剩”到了哪一级
This will help you define which category of leftovers you belong to:

25~27岁 剩斗士
25 to 27 years old Literal translation: "Leftover fighter" (Phonetic equivalent - Saint)
初级剩女，这些人还有勇气继续为寻找伴侣而奋斗，故称“剩斗士”
Beginner level of the "Leftover Bachelorette", these persons still perserve to find their other half.